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Twenty Democratic candidates are headed to Detroit to debate Tuesday and Wednesday but there remains only one clear front-runner: former Vice President Joe Biden.

Despite what many considered a poor debate showing in Miami last month, Biden, a former U.S. senator from Delaware, continues to poll strongly in national and early-primary-state polls, maintaining a double-digit lead in many.

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Trailing Biden are a group of candidates widely considered as the top tier from which he might face a challenge: U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has never before run for federal office, also continues to be a factor in national polling, though a sharp rise in name recognition and poll results for him has leveled off somewhat in recent months.

Leading this early in the national polls by no means guarantees success for Biden, who launched unsuccessful campaigns for president in 1998 and 2008 before becoming President Barack Obama's vice president.

But early primary polling can be somewhat predictive, as the campaign polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight.com has written about in detail. It's also not certain, however: In some cases, less-than-optimal polling by well-known candidates can show a vulnerability while lesser-known candidates outperforming their name recognition can indicate room for growth with voters in the polls.

Political primaries, of course, are not held nationally but in each state, and while national polls can give a good idea about how the candidates are positioned, individual state polls can potentially provide a better idea about who could grab the early momentum when voting starts next year and force out other candidates.

The survey, which also included questions about voter concern over climate change, (two-thirds said they were very or somewhat concerned about the impact of climate change) was done along with the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The presidential primary part of the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.